Capitol Hill Handles Mail To The Letter

WASHINGTON — John Davis, top aide to Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, still recalls the rebuke his first boss gave him 15 years ago.

Davis was new on Capitol Hill, working for John Duncan, a senior Republican congressman from Tennessee. Davis had committed the ultimate offense: He had failed to answer a constituent's letter.

Duncan called Davis into his office and shut the door.

''The most important thing in this office is a letter from a constituent,'' Duncan said. ''The second most important thing is a letter from a constituent. Quite frankly, there is no third thing. Answer the mail.''

The reprimand is still fresh in Davis' memory.

''I guess I've told that story a thousand times,'' Davis said recently as he sat in Stearns' office. ''That's the quickest way to get in trouble around here, by not answering your mail.''

Confirming Cabinet appointments and passing major legislation may be more glamorous, but few jobs are more crucial to a congressman's survival than reading and answering the mail.

''It's very simple,'' said Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla. ''If a person writes you a letter and you don't respond, they assume that either you don't care or you're too busy.''

Without exception, every Florida congressman interviewed said he answers nearly every letter he

receives from a constituent.

''What surprises me is not how much mail I get,'' said Rep. Craig James, R-DeLand, ''but how much of it my staff answers quickly. We've mailed out 25,000 responses since January.''

The logistics can be staggering, especially for a senator. For a six-month period during 1988, Sen. Bob Graham's office expense report showed that nearly 10 percent of his $740,500 semiannual payroll went to aides whose job descriptions involved the mail call.

That percentage may be low, however, because sooner or later nearly everyone in a congressional office gets caught up in the letter-answering process.

When Mack arrived in Washington fresh from his election victory last November, 30,000 letters awaited him. His office expects to receive 300,000 letters this year.

Simply opening and sorting the three daily mail deliveries is a full-time job for two of Mack's people. Five other aides devote most of their time to answering those letters, with help from the four to 17 unpaid interns who supplement Mack's 30-member Washington staff.

''Reading the mail is an invaluable way of taking the pulse of your constituents,'' said Graham, D-Fla., who estimated that he receives a thousand letters a day.

The numbers are smaller for Florida's 19 House representatives. Rep. Bill Nelson's office, for instance, received roughly 8,000 unsolicited letters during the first three months of 1989, an aide said.

Unfortunately for congressional staffs, the mail does not arrive at a steady pace; the ebb and flow can fluctuate wildly. When the public outcry over a proposed congressional pay raise was at its peak, for example, Nelson was receiving 200 anti-pay raise letters each day.

The current big issue appears to be the catastrophic-illness health care measure that will expand Medicare benefits over five years. Although agreeable to the idea at first, many voters are having second thoughts since learning that the new benefits may raise many of their premiums by more than $1,000 a year.

Another source of letters is President Bush's proposal to freeze cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, for those receiving federal or military pensions.

An outpouring of letters can be persuasive. Since the deluge of COLA mail, several Floridians have cosponsored bills that would ban the freeze.

In response to his mail, Nelson has modified his position on catastrophic health care. Although he voted for the bill last year, he is now cosponsoring two revisions.

Of course, members of Congress often encourage constituent letters with newsletters and voter surveys. Such mass-mailings are especially

important for someone like James, who upset the late Rep. Bill Chappell last November in Florida's 4th Congressional District by fewer than 800 votes.

Given that narrow margin of victory, James is almost certain to be targeted by Democrats in 1990. In a pre-emptive move against potential challengers, he cranked out a mass-mailing to 378,000 constituent households within two weeks of assuming office.

The cost was covered by his newly acquired franking privilege, which allows members of Congress to send out their mail at taxpayer expense.

The questionnaire drew 50,000 responses.

Sometimes it is the congressmen, not the constituents, who are the target of mass-mailings. Several Florida congressmen have received stacks of letters from Beer Drinkers of America, a national group that opposes raising taxes on their favorite beverage.